Return Triumphant
by Jaywings
Summary: After a long day and night of jumping from mind to crazy mind, defeating personal demons, dodging dangerous psychic animals, and fighting brain tanks to rescue the minds of his fellow campers, Raz returns to camp wanting nothing more than to sleep. One-shot, takes place in the midst of the final cutscene of the game.


A/N: This is my first attempt at writing Psychonauts! This is really a sort of prequel thing to a longer fic that I have in mind and want to write, and I did this as an exercise to see how I am with writing the characters. I feel pretty comfortable doing it but if any of these guys seem OOC for any reason, please do let me know. If I actually do write the long fic I don't want it to have messed up characterization.

This takes place in the middle of the final cutscene of the game, in between the ending of Meat Circus and Coach Oleander making his speech to the camp.

* * *

It had been one of the longest nights in the history of Whispering Rock.

Even the animals felt it. The soft golden light of dawn filtering over the horizon at last caught one or two lingering cougars by surprise—they looked up, blinking, and then slunk off from their favored stations around the desolate areas of the summer camp and vanished deep into the woods for the day, the tips of their tails swishing.

Down by the lake a few seagulls touched down and hopped back and forth between the bodies of fish washed ashore in search of any edible morsels. Two picked up a fish head at the same time and fell to fighting over it, each attempting to yank it away from the other and noticing too late that their squabble had brought them to the edge of the water and, as such, into the hull of a small rowboat that washed onto the sand. Their meal abandoned, the gulls took to the air with a series of squawks and alighted instead on the old boathouse in order to shake themselves and salvage what little dignity they had.

The rowboat stuck in the sand and came to a standstill with a little bump. Murky water lapped up against the wooden sides and a few inquisitive fish sidled over to examine it, circling around before deciding it was nothing of interest to them and darting off.

Razputin Aquato swung his feet out of the boat and onto the sandy beach, levering himself onto them and stumbling forward a bit. His usually excellent sense of balance failed him for a second and he might even have fallen over if not for the arm that gently reached out and steadied him. Turning, he saw the warm smile of his father, and had to smile back.

"You've had quite the adventure," Augustus Aquato said, climbing out of the boat as well with his hand still on Raz's shoulder. "Maybe it's time you—"

"That was _amazing!_" Lili Zanotto—_my girlfriend_, Raz reminded himself with a funny fluttery feeling in his stomach—dropped down next to him in a small spray of sand and thumped him in the arm, hard.

The fluttering feeling evaporated. "Ow," Raz complained, rubbing the area.

"_That's _for leaving me unconscious outside a rundown insane asylum and getting your brain hopelessly tangled up with our crazy coach's in a giant death tank," Lili said.

Raz winced a little. "Could you not say it that way? It sounds… weird."

His girlfriend smiled and bumped him again, lighter this time. "But hey, last night was the coolest time of my life. Even the part where we had to fish your brainless body out of the shallows before you could drown yourself in the lake. So thanks."

"Wait, _what?_" both Raz and Augustus sputtered at the same time.

"What a night!" Before Lili could respond, Agent Milla Vodello jumped down, performing a quick flip in the air and tossing her hair over her shoulder when she hit the ground. She looked as flawless and unfrazzled as ever, despite the ordeal they had all been through in the past few hours and the fact that she had just now levitated both herself and Lili across the entire stretch of Lake Oblongata that separated the camp from the asylum. She looked up, catching sight of Agent Sasha Nein as he drifted down to join them. "Sasha, do you have any old work clothes I could borrow for the day? While we were floating over I saw nasty footprints all over my dock and I need to scrub them off before I can hold any other classes there."

"I think I might have some somewhere," Sasha replied, massaging his temple with one hand. "Unless the mind-probing I underwent has affected my memory, I brought some to the camp but never unpacked them."

"I just hope they're not too drab, darling," Milla said lightly, tapping him on the shoulder and giving him a teasing smile. "The right colors can make anything look fabulous, even washing muddy footprints off a dock!"

Lili nudged Raz and leaned in closer to say in a not-so-quiet-whisper, "Borrowing each other's clothes, huh? Sounds like we're not the only lovebirds around camp!"

"Oh, children, Sasha and I are just great friends!" Milla corrected, wagging one finger in their direction. "Besides, he doesn't know a thing about romance."

"Did we all get here safely?" Sasha stepped forward, ignoring her remarks and mentally counting every present member of their party. "Where's Agent Cruller?"

"Back here, thanks for waiting up for me." Ford Cruller descended to the ground next to them. Agent Cruller, still wearing a slab of psitanium strapped to his back just so he could keep his own mind, was the man without whom Raz would have died a hundred times over during the course of the night.

Once he had landed with them he took one look at the rowboat in the sand and narrowed his eyes. "Son, did you sail across the lake in one of our best rowboats?"

"It was sitting right by the dock," Augustus replied for Raz. "I thought no one would mind if I borrowed it for a bit. I also broke through the rope barrier blocking off canoe access to the island, but I'll pay for that in full."

Agent Cruller fixed him with a stern look and Sasha spoke up again. "Sir, are you having another attack?"

"No, I just don't want to see our good canoes take needless damage," Agent Cruller sighed. "Anyway, now that we're all together, we've got a lot to talk about. For one thing, what are we going to do with _him?_"

For one brief moment, Raz thought Agent Cruller was talking about him. However, the aged Psychonaut carried down a stretcher scavenged from the wreckage of the asylum, on which the camp's head coach, Morceau Oleander, lay unmoving.

It was the first time Raz had seen the coach in the physical world since the traitor's de-brained body had come trundling out of the asylum, dragging his arms along the ground and murmuring a slack-jawed "Teeee-veeee…"

From Raz's vantage point he couldn't see whether the coach was breathing or not, and his eyes widened. "Oh my gosh, did I… _kill_ him?"

"What? Oh, no, of course not!" Agent Cruller waved him off. "My guess is he just couldn't bounce back from the mind-entangling and re-braining as fast as you did. Not all of us are as young as you are, you know. He'll come around any minute now."

At his words, Coach Oleander groaned, though he didn't open his eyes.

"Maybe we should take him to my lab," Sasha suggested. "Keep him away from the other children for now. For… everyone's safety."

"Well, that's a better idea than what _I_ had in mind," Agent Cruller said with a shrug. He didn't elaborate on that, instead heading off in the direction of the Geodesic Psychoisolation Chambers with Coach Oleander's stretcher bobbing in the air behind him. "Sasha, Milla, meet me in my sanctuary later so we can discuss where to go from here."

"Ooh, can I go too?" Raz asked, trotting forward a few paces, excitement bubbling up in his chest. However, Sasha shook his head.

"You've done enough for today, Razputin," he said. "You've been a great help to us, but you're not a Psychonaut _yet_."

Perhaps seeing the disappointed look on Raz's face, Milla crouched down and lifted his chin. "Don't worry, darling, we're not going to forget what you've done. Now you, and Lili, would you do me a favor, darlings? Go get lots of sleep, both of you. You both look dead on your feet." She stood back up and turned to Sasha. "In fact, I think the entire camp should take the day off, don't you agree?"

"Well, technically it's only the second full day of camp," Sasha pointed out. "But considering everything that went on last night—yes, I think we could all do with some rest."

"Come on then, let's go get some iced tea and find those work clothes," Milla said, turning and beckoning Sasha to follow her as she lifted into the air and drifted off. Sasha gave one last nod to Raz and Lili before levitating up and following Milla.

"Oh, and Mr. Aquato," he added over his shoulder, "you're welcome to rest in the lodge if you would like. It should be empty for several more hours at least."

"Thanks. I might just take you up on that offer," Augustus replied. He, Raz, and Lili were the only ones left standing on the beach, and he turned his full attention to his son. "Now, Raz, I would ask you to show me around this camp of yours, but from what you've told me you've been through a lot more these past hours than anyone else in this place. I think you should listen to Ms. Vodello and go sleep for as long as you want. The rest of the week, maybe."

Raz gave a dry laugh. "Oh, come on, Dad, you know me. I could go thwart a whole other crazy world-domination plot before lunch!"

Lili smacked him upside the head, but lightly. "Really? Cocky much?"

"I'm just saying."

The three of them stepped onto the boardwalk leading from the lake and headed up toward the lodge, Augustus in front and Raz and Lili in back. About halfway up Lili slipped her hand into Raz's and they smiled at each other, holding each other's gazes and almost walking off the edge of the boardwalk due to not watching where they were putting their feet. Days ago, Raz would have scoffed at the very thought of romance. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought he would end up feeling this way toward someone—but, well, here he was.

"What time do you suppose it is?" Raz asked Lili in a low voice. Despite his earlier teasing boasts, now that they were moving again he found that his feet were dragging and he kind of couldn't bring himself to fix it.

"_Way_ too early," Lili replied, and Raz had to agree.

They parted ways with Augustus at the lodge and walked back to the kids' cabins together, hand-in-hand but in silence. Raz let out a long sigh.

He'd jumped in and out of countless mental worlds, run his feet off both in camp and across the lake, earned every single one of his merit badges in a single day, ranked up as high as a psy-cadet could, scaled an insane asylum prone to crumbling under his feet, took on a megalomaniacal coach with psychic powers, run through the nightmare that could only be described as the Meat Circus… and he was physically and mentally _exhausted_.

* * *

Someone prodded Raz in the back of the head.

"Dad, can you feed the elephants today?" Raz mumbled, waving away the hand and rolling over. He was rewarded with something poking him right in the eye.

"Raz! You didn't die!" a voice said in a tone that suggested the speaker was pleased but surprised.

Raz's eyes snapped open and he found himself inches away from Dogen's face. With a yelp he shot bolt upright, scrambling backwards and looking around to gain some sense of his surroundings. He was sitting on his bunk, the one above Dogen's; Dogen had climbed up partway to poke him and, apparently, see whether or not he was still alive. Raz rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He recalled saying goodnight to Lili (despite it being the early morning), making it to his cabin, and then somehow managing to climb into his bed where he'd promptly collapsed without changing or even taking off his goggles or shoes.

Across the cabin, Maloof was writing in a journal or something on his bed. "Oh, hey, Raz," he said, looking up. "How'd the world-saving thing go?"

"Um, great." Raz stretched and wished, not for the first time, that he had a watch. How long had he been able to sleep? It could only have been a couple hours.

After making sure that Raz was, indeed, not dead, Dogen hopped down onto the floor. "The squirrels told me that you had to go to the tower across the lake and fight that dentist," he said. "Wow, Raz, that's amazing."

"Well, I didn't exactly fight the dentist." Raz rubbed the back of his neck. The image of Dr. Loboto being blasted off the tallest tower of the insane asylum and falling, screaming, into the darkness played out in his mind and he shuddered. Yeah, the guy had been an evil creep, but… _yeesh_.

"Hey, Raz," Nils, the other camper sharing the cabin, said as he got out of his own bunk and cast Raz a glance. "Cool to see you're still in one piece. Agent Sasha came on the loudspeaker earlier and said all classes are cancelled today, so I guess we don't have to worry about Basic Braining."

"We shouldn't have to worry about it anyway!" Maloof said. "I'd like to know where they're keeping Mr. Morceau Oleander. Mikhail and I have a bone or two to pick with him. Anyway, I'm going to the lodge for breakfast. You coming, Raz?"

"Maybe later." Raz lay back down, letting them head out without him. He couldn't help frowning. Was that all Sasha had announced? Nothing else? Nothing about him? He could at least have gotten an honorable mention or something. He'd only saved the world and earned all of his merit badges in roughly twenty-four hours, no big deal.

"All right, so maybe Lili was right about being cocky," he admitted to himself. He'd only done what was necessary, after all. Besides, it wasn't like he had done all this on his own. It was only thanks to Sasha, Milla, Agent Cruller, and, strangely enough, his own father that he'd ever gotten anywhere past the first Basic Braining merit badge. And he couldn't thank them enough.

Raz reached up and pulled off his goggles, setting them to the side and kicking off his shoes. He curled up, closing his eyes again with a small smile on his face.

He didn't have to worry about his dad yanking him away from this place anymore. And he was still young, after all—he had plenty of time to refine his skills and become a great, full-fledged Psychonaut in time. What was the rush? He had amazing teachers, maybe one or two friends around camp, a girlfriend, and a dad that he could talk to about anything.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Razputin Aquato felt at peace.


End file.
